


Roots and Wings

by celli



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, M/M, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-05
Updated: 2007-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-25 11:03:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/638211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/pseuds/celli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know how it's supposed to be easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission? Sometimes both are harder than you think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roots and Wings

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://undermistletoe.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://undermistletoe.livejournal.com/)**undermistletoe** challenge. My prompt was a soap opera trope: _The kid I never knew I had._  
>  Spoilers: Through episode 2.9, "Cautionary Tales."

_There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings._  
\--Hodding Carter, Jr.

Fall was kicking in early this September, the wind already rustling the leaves suspiciously, even though Labor Day weekend had just passed. Mohinder narrowed his eyes against the afternoon sun as they entered the campus.

Next to him, Molly looked around avidly, her arm absently looped through Matt's. At seventeen, she still seemed on the fragile side to Mohinder, even though Matt reassured him regularly that that was "just a dad thing." With her neat blonde ponytail and her cropped jacket, she could have blended in with the entering college freshmen. Mohinder was not-so-secretly glad they had another year left with her, though.

Matt smiled over Molly's head at him. "Planning to apply for a job while we're here?"

Mohinder laughed at him. "Please. After that last round of speeches, my professional credibility is only slightly higher than that of the crackpot we heard on TV last week claiming that the pyramids are really alien spaceships. I'd be afraid to work for anyone who wanted to hire me."

"Good thing the novels sell so well, then," Molly said.

"Indeed. And that at least one member of this family has a steady job and an expectation of a pension."

Matt inclined his head humbly. "You do what you gotta do."

"Molly!" they heard, and a tall figure half a block away started waving at them frantically.

"Micah!" she shrieked, and took off with out a backward glance.

Mohinder and Matt fell into step as Molly threw her arms around Micah. She had to stretch up to do it, too--Micah had finally become as tall as his parents' statures would have suggested. She squeezed hard and let go, and Mohinder waited for her to start chattering on a mile a minute as usual. Instead, though, the two of them just...looked at each other.

This wasn't good.

"You're telling me," Matt said under his breath.

***

"Molly's bringing Micah over for dinner," Mohinder said a few weeks later, handing Matt four plates to put on the table.

"Again? Doesn't that kid have a meal plan?"

"I thought you liked him," Mohinder said innocently.

"I did like him. I liked him just fine until Molly started liking him just fine. Now I have issues." Matt stopped rattling silverware and glared at Mohinder. "Stop laughing at me. You don't like him either. You remember the first time we took Molly to India? Your mother had _exactly_ the same look on her face that you have every time Micah walks in the door."

"That is _not_ true," Mohinder said, offended. But only for a moment. "I--really?"

Matt nodded.

Mohinder scowled. "I'm trying to be open-minded here."

"I'm not."

"I know. And one of us should."

"Why? He's eighteen years old. He wants to date our daughter. And he's a nice kid, but _he wants to date our daughter._ Why should I cut him any kind of slack?"

"Because," Mohinder said, "our daughter wants to date him as well. And we should at least try to trust her, don't you think?"

Matt's mouth opened and shut again. Mohinder turned back to the cupboard and started rummaging for four matching glasses.

He bobbled two glasses when Matt came up behind him and wrapped his arms around him. "All right. I will try not to eviscerate him on sight. For Molly."

"Are you going to stop reading his mind the whole time?"

"No."

"Matthew."

"Hey, I need every edge I can get. Besides, it's pretty boring most of the time. He's usually thinking, 'oh, God, Detective Parkman can read my mind.'" Matt smiled against Mohinder's neck. "He's got a healthy sense of self-preservation, I'll give him that."

Mohinder tried not to laugh, but Matt would know it anyway. He turned his face enough to let Matt kiss him. "Go set the table and practice behaving like an adult."

Matt kissed him again and took the glasses from him. "It takes all the fun out of it, but I'll try."

***

They fell into a routine--Micah came over after his afternoon class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Matt teased Mohinder when no one else was around about how much more elaborate his meals got when he had Micah's appreciative palate to cook for.

Fridays were date night for everyone--after the first few weekends of staying home and watching Matt try to read minds from a distance, Mohinder started dragging him out the door as soon as Micah picked up Molly. They went to the movies, ate out at restaurants they'd always meant to try, even went ice skating once winter hit.

"Face it," Mohinder said, smirking down at Matt. Again. "Skating is not subject to mental powers. If it was, you wouldn't be so terribly bad at it."

Matt flipped him off. Mohinder started laughing, and didn't stop, even when Matt pulled him off balance and onto the ice.

Then, one Friday night, Molly swept into the living room, a dangly earring in one hand and lip gloss in the other. "Guys-I-want-to-call-a-family-meeting," she said, and then appeared to be holding her breath.

Mohinder and Matt froze.

"Now?" Matt asked, his voice substantially higher than usual.

"Tomorrow morning. I'll make omelets. And everything's _fine,_ Matt," Molly said, waving a hand at Matt in the talk-to-the-hand gesture than had come to mean 'please stop trying to read my mind.' I just--I just want to talk to you."

"All right," Mohinder said slowly. He nudged Matt's arm. "All _right._ "

"Yeah, right, fine," Matt said, but it was clear from the look on his face that he was going to think about nothing else for the next twelve hours.

***

Mohinder awoke to a pan clattering and a muffled curse from the kitchen. He smiled.

"She's almost as hard on the cookware as you are."

Matt's response was more grunt than word.

Mohinder turned to face him. "Matt, were you up all night worrying about this?"

"Not all night."

He sighed. "Listen, whatever it is she wants to discuss with us--"

"You know what it is!"

" _Whatever_ it is, we need to take her seriously."

"Oh, I take this completely seriously." Matt's scowl deepened. "That's why our answer will be no."

"We need to have a respectful, open discussion--"

" _Open?_ I knew it! I knew you'd be on her side!"

"What's that supposed to mean? I'm suggesting that we not go in this talk with an attitude of, of--"

"Of fatherhood?"

Mohinder fought back a furious response. "Don't do this," he finally said in a strained voice.

Matt stared at him stonily. "I'm going to take a shower," he said finally.

Mohinder followed hot on his heels. "Matt--" But Matt slammed and locked the bathroom door in his face. He threw his hands in the air. "Oh, this is going to go brilliantly."

***

The omelets--Molly's prized culinary accomplishments--might as well have been hardtack for all the attention the three of them paid. Hardtack with weevils, Mohinder thought glumly, poking at a green pepper. Matt kept his eyes down and plowed through his omelet mechanically. Molly would eat a few bites, look nervously at one or the other of them, then look back down at her plate.

It was almost a relief to put forks and glasses down and adjourn into the living room--for the main event, so to speak. Molly perched on the very edge of Matt's armchair, feet splayed out slightly on the carpet. Mohinder sat well to one end of the couch, but Matt chose to stand, jamming his hands into his back pockets.

"Okay," Molly said. She cleared her throat. "Okay. I just want to say, for the record, that I don't even think we need to be having this conversation. But out of respect for the two of you--"

And Matt's telepathy, Mohinder thought dryly.

"I want to be upfront and lay it all out." She took a deep breath. "I'm going to have sex with Micah."

"Oh, no, you are not," Matt said at full volume.

"Let me repeat," Molly said, clearly struggling for control, "this isn't about asking you if I can--"

"Good, because you're not going to."

"Matt!"

Mohinder raised both hands. "Both of you, calm down. This is no way to begin a difficult discussion."

They both turned on him. "It's not a discussion!" they said in furious unison.

Molly continued with barely a breath. "Not the way _he_ wants to run things. And I knew you were going to take his side."

"Of course he's on my side." Mohinder opened his mouth to protest, but Matt just rolled right on. "You're too young, and you are not ready to make that call, so we're making it for you."

Molly surged to her feet. "I am not too young!" she shouted up at Matt. "I'm old enough to make my own decisions, and way past old enough to live my own life, and if you're too dumb to see it, it's not my fault!"

Matt fell back a half step, the flush on his cheeks fading noticeably.

Mohinder stood as well. "Molly. That was out of line."

Matt waved him back. "No, no. I want to hear all about what a loser I am."

"Well, when you make decisions for me, what happens? I get jerked around like a puppet on a string."

"I don't do that anymore--"

"Better yet, I almost die. Or did you forget that when you make decisions for someone you _say_ you love, they tend to wind up in a coma?"

There was a rushing noise, and the edges of Mohinder's vision blurred as an indescribable force pushed hard against him. He struggled to take a breath; dimly, he could see Molly curling her hands over her chest.

Then the pressure vanished, and the room went black.

He heard voices, too many to make out the words. Hundreds of them, thousands. They whispered, called, screamed. Mohinder tried to put hands he couldn't feel over ears he couldn't block, but the voices continued, battering at him.

A few voices started to stand out from the rest. Molly, a much younger Molly, screaming Matt's name. Maury Parkman, laughing. Angela Petrelli, calling Matt a monster.

 _Matt,_ he tried to project over the noise. _Matt, it's Mohinder. Stop it!_ But the voices continued. A host of villains, the ones with powers and the simple criminals whose minds Matt had read. And a voice Mohinder recognized with a shock as his own, bitter and angry, from an argument he barely remembered having with Matt years ago.

_Matt!_

\--and suddenly, he was on his knees on the carpet, his throat raw from shouting.

Molly was still standing but shaking like a leaf, her hands clamped down over her ears. Mohinder pushed himself up and reached for her.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," she said, leaning heavily on him. "Matt--"

Matt, ashen-faced, backed away until the door to Molly's bedroom stopped him. "Oh, my God."

"Everything's all right," Mohinder said, to which of them he wasn't sure. "Let's just--Matt, wait."

Matt shook his head and continued his unsteady path to the door. "I have to, I have to get out. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Mohinder thought _Matt!_ as sharply as he could, but Matt was already pulling the door closed behind him.

***

There was a playground a few blocks away that had just enough trees surrounding it to block out the worst of the noise and the movement along the street beside it. It had been Molly's favorite place to go with Matt, even after she outgrew all but the highest of the swings.

Mohinder had asked Molly to check, just in case, but he'd known where Matt would go.

Matt was standing in front of the fence, banging the toe of his shoe against one of the railings rhythmically. Mohinder dropped Matt's jacket on the post next to him.

"It may be reasonably good weather for December, but it's still December."

"Thanks. Go back to Molly." Matt didn't look up.

"She's fine."

"Go away."

"You know me better than that. Put the jacket on, Matthew. I'm not having a conversation with a man whose lips are turning blue."

Matt glared at him, but he grabbed the jacket. Mohinder relaxed a little. Matt looked at him expectantly, but Mohinder just put his hands into his pockets, leaned against the fence, and waited.

"I don't--have any excuse," Matt finally said. "What happened in there, what I did, was…I don't have the words for it."

"Awful," Mohinder said. "Heartbreaking. Not deliberate."

"Don't let me off the hook, damn it. It's my power. It's my job to control it."

"One lapse does not a loss of control make. And you didn't hurt anyone, Matt. Or try to influence our minds at all."

"I promised. After Chicago--" Matt stopped, and finally, finally, reached out for Mohinder. "I _promised,_ " he said raggedly into Mohinder's shoulder.

Mohinder wrapped his arms around Matt. "And you kept your promise. The rest is just words, I swear. We'll get through this."

"Just another exciting adventure, right?"

"Something like that."

"Guys?"

They both turned, arms still around each other, to face Molly.

"Are you okay, honey?" Matt asked.

She nodded.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"I know. Listen--Matt--" She took a deep breath. "I just want you to know that I am not sorry for any of the mature, reasonable stuff I said at the beginning there, all right?"

"Okay."

"But I'm really, incredibly sorry for the rest of it. I should never have said any of that. I don't mean it. I _really_ don't. You can read my mind if you don't believe me."

"Come here." Matt pulled her into a one-armed hug and kissed the top of her head. "I believe you. I'm not mad. I mean, I still want to lecture you a whole bunch about this hare-brained--"

Mohinder pinched the closest place he could reach on Matt.

"--ow! I mean, we need to talk about this, okay? But I'm not mad."

"The thing is, Molly," Mohinder said, reaching out to tuck her hair back behind her ear, "you've been our little girl since the three of us stood in a hospital room all those years ago. When you're celebrating the birth of your own child--which I may add, doesn't need to be for a long, long time yet--you'll still be our little girl. It's hard to just stop trying to take care of you. It doesn't come easy."

"I get that, but, you know, there's a lot of very logical reasons why you don't need to feel that way." Molly's free arm came around Mohinder, folding them all up in one of their old-fashioned tangled up six-arm hugs. "I'll explain them all to you later."

"I look forward to it," Mohinder said, and tightened his arms around both of them.


End file.
